Case Studies
See what Ink IT can do to increase your productivity and your bottom line! Below are a few selected highlights of companies we have worked with and provided invaluable business solutions to.
Dixondale Farms – Wholesale
Dixondale Farms is a major supplier of onion plants in the United States. While they started out small as a mail-order company, Dixondale later added e-commerce capabilities. Ink IT was tasked with building a new site, as well as creating a streamlined order process, as well as branded materials to aid customers.
Problems and Solutions
Their main mail-order system for order management would not allow the company to add other websites, so we worked with them to create a new WooCommerce Wholesale website. We then worked with them to convert the order information to XML, and send files via FTP to the mail-order database for processing. Before we built the website, customers had to call in their orders. To make things easier, we created new accounts for past customers, and created an easier and more efficient way for them to access the website, with all their preexisting account information intact.
Pricing for the products is unique, dependent on geographical location and grow zone. In order to properly price each customer, we had to determine where the customer was located, and if their address was residential or commercial. In order to do so, during the sign up process- we asked each customer for their shipping address, or pre-filled if available and asked for verification. We used Smarty Streets to check their address and find out if UPS considered them commercial or residential. This insured that the shipping (which can be costly), would be 100% accurate and cost-effective
for Dixondale.
Innovations and Improvements
During conversations with Dixondale, we realized they didn’t have a concise idea what their customers were looking for from them, so we created a survey and sent the survey to their current customer base. The response rate was impressive, and we gleaned that the customers were eager to see signage and brochures for the products. Armed with this new knowledge of customer need, we got to work and created signage for each and every brand. We also added chat and other modern features, such as a marketing library to the site to improve the customer journey.
We are elated to report that customers have taken well to the website, and sales have not only increased, but are also much more streamlined and efficient. The fear that customers would not adapt or accept the new system never materialized. As of fall 2020, orders are up 40%! The Dixondale Farms team is now poised to take on one of their busiest seasons, despite Covid-19 setbacks. With customers now being able to self-serve, the phones are freed up to handle true customer ordering issues. 
Mantis
Mantis (Mantis.com) is a leading retainer of tillers and cultivators. They specialize in creating compact lawn and garden products packed with big performance.
Problems and Solutions
Mantis.com, which sells retail gardening equipment via their WooCommerce website, previously fed orders into a home-grown system. They elected to upgrade to an Oracle-based system, and asked for our help to improve the integration. The first order of business was to create a custom plugin for their credit card processing. We needed to communicate with the credit card processor, and then send the token information to Oracle. Under a tight deadline, we created the plugin and tested it in one week’s time.
Next, we needed to modify the tax system. Oracle needed the website to pass the county name so it could process the correct tax. The previous version of the website used a simple tax Jar plugin. We worked with the Avatax API from Avalera to correctly gain the US county information during the checkout process, and add that information to the custom XML we were providing to Oracle about the order. This process smoothly allowed the team at Mantis to make the switch to Oracle, without missing a beat.